(Person) Percentage - Sabanci University Research Database

The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
engaged a community and described newspaper readership/circulation as a mark of citizen
interest in community affairs(Putnam, RD, Leonardi & Nanetti 1993, p. 97).
CONNECTING SOCIAL CAPITAL TO THE REGIONAL MEDIA
Most of the academic literature linking the media to social capital focuses on the role it plays
in community building, collective action and ‘civicnesss’. Putnam and his followers uses
newspaper readership as an indicator of ‘civicness’ or community social capital. Pippa
Norris, a protagonist to Putnam, argues that societies with high levels of social capital also
have widespread access to the mass media, most notably newspapers, but unlike Putnam she
contends that informal social networks that arise from civil society are unrelated to use of
mass media (Norris 2002, p. 7). Bourdieu argues those who are professional or selfappointed
disseminators of information require social capital over economic capital to
succeed. Coleman and Putnam, along with other theorists such as (Adler 2000; Kilpatrick
2002) specifically describe information channels as forms of social capital (Putnam in
reference to ‘bridging’ social capital), but Coleman uses examples of individuals bypassing
newspapers in favour of friends or family for news and information as an example of the
power of close ties.
Some theorists have attempted to use community newspaper content as a measure of
collective social capital (Kreuters 1998; McManamey 2004) or link circulation size of
community newspapers in certain geographical areas to social capital (Galper 2002). In
Australia, John Harrison, Geoff Woolcock and Sue Scull attempted to map definitions of
social capital and its relationship to the media, to work towards a contemporary definition of
the theory. (Harrison 2004) Their research focused on the role the media played in
community building and generating ‘civicness ‘, highlighting local newspapers, civic
journalism and community broadcasting as holding commitments to increasing community
social capital. But there is a blurring of the distinction between social capital and civic
journalism as one in the same, when further unpacking of the theory and how it applies to
news production is required.
Bowd, in her examination of the regional media in Australia, argues that in order to fulfil
their information and networking role and contribute to social capital, local media need to be
in some way ‘connected’ to their audience (Bowd 2009, p. 53). She argues in particular that
the advocacy role performed by many local news outlets can support this. McManamey
(2004) has provided one of the most detailed studies on the relationship between social
capital and the independent community newspaper. Her longitudinal study of newspapers in
Tasmania, Australia (1910 to 2000), examines newspaper content and its relationship to
social capital in a community. She found there was a significant link between hard
times/difficult circumstances such as the Great Depression and recession of the 1980s and the
establishment of community newspapers as an outcome of social capital. She sees trust and
networks as important ‘elements’ of social capital and contends community newspaper
content is based on strengthening communications between members, identity building, and
increasing the avenues for voicing and addressing issues by local communities. She indicates,
however, more research could be undertaken into understanding the dynamics of newsroom
production and social capital.
Little research has been undertaken that examines the value social capital has for commercial
regional media networks in relation to the production, dissemination and reproduction of
news and information. Like Bourdieu, this paper argues that the deliberate and conscious
acquisition of social capital should be core to any business strategy for regional newspapers.
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